In order to diagnose a hardware component failure, computing devices, such as storage server devices, are configured to output diagnostic information regarding the error(s) resulting in the failure to a memory location. The output diagnostic information can include where the error originated, the severity of the error, health information gathered by monitoring the hardware component prior to the occurrence of the error, or any other information useful for a technician to diagnose the error. Often, hardware components experiencing an error must be replaced and the diagnostic information facilitates efficient identification of the failed hardware component and replacement of the component to minimize system downtime.
The process of retrieving the diagnostic information from the memory location can be handled by an operating system executed by the system processor that is used to carry out many of the functions of the computing device. However, during hardware exception processing many software and hardware components may be unreliable or unavailable and the operating system may not perform as expected or be loaded at all by the system processor. In the event that the system processor fails to successfully load the operating system, a technician may be unable to access the memory location to retrieve the diagnostic information that can be used to diagnose a hardware component failure, which is undesirable.